Purple is the Color of My True Love's Leaves!!

Purple Kale - the colder it gets, the prettier
(and tastier!) it becomes! 

We are feeling purple in The Learning Garden these days!  

Starting on the 2nd of Janurary, we present the  Growing Food in Southern California class with the Gardenmaster.  Is one of your resolutions to make your garden more productive, and more satisfying for you?  Are you hoping to learn more about sustainability?  Get yourself on over here Saturday morning for this class at 10:00.  No need for an RSVP - we have the class regardless and there is always a theme.  This month, we hope that everyone has a desire to grow more food, so we'll address your needs, your questions specifically so you are on the right track from Day Two!  

A spiffed up Gardenmaster!
Don't be fooled, he still has dirt under his nails.

Attendees this month will get a baby PURPLE artichoke plant from a new variety being bred here locally, called Winetka Purple.  We're helping to make the variety become stable (the last part of creating a new strain of vegetable), which means, these plants are triply exciting to grow - you get to eat some, you get to watch some of them bloom (wow!) and then save seeds from those that look like we want them to look like.  It will be a fun and learning experience for everyone.

Later on in the month - as an added bonus, the Seed Library of Los Angeles has their first meeting of the year on January 16th, Craig Ruggless, the man who created Winnetka Purple Artichokes will tell us how he did it and what is left to be done.  These chokes are beautiful and have lots of the food parts we are all so fond of.  Especially if you got some of our seedlings on January 2nd, you really will want to be here on the 16th to hear the whole story!  

Make plans to be a part of these two events this month!  

January 2 - 10:00 to Noon, $20 at the gate or PayPal to greenteach@gmail.com - discounts for prepaying for five classes (one free).  

January 16 - 2:30 PM the monthly meeting of the Seed Library of Los Angeles (SLOLA) - free to attend - to join and check out seeds, $10 for your lifetime.  

Get your growing off right in 2016!  Grow some of your own food!

david

Perennial Foods for a Toasty Future

Mesquite Pods are one of the foods of the future!

No matter what it's called – Global Warming, Global Climate Change or, as I like to call it Global Weirdness – might be already influencing our gardens. 

• Why is that our apple trees have not gone dormant for the past three years?
• Why do we have really low temperatures (for Los Angeles) followed by a heat wave of unsettling proportions?

Honestly, I don't know if these are the effects of global anything – and in truth, we'll only see it in hindsight anyway. But, this topic is valuable for your garden today whether or not we'll be toasty.

Perennial food plants, giving you harvests year after year without being replanted, are less affected by bad weather or unseasonal storms or weather patterns. Some of our best food comes from these plants and most of them are easier to grow and maintain with only a little training.

This Saturday, December 5th! 10 AM $20 (No RSVP required!)

Pay by PayPal to greenteach at gmail dot com

david